GOC shirks responsibilities under International Law

June 17, 2016 June 17, 2016

GOC denies e-70 Petition request for a Public Inquiry into Treatment of Afghan Detainees

The government of Prime Minister Trudeau [through Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan ] has just responded to e-petition E-70, which calls for a commission of inquiry into the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canada. Notwithstanding that the Liberal Party, while in opposition, voted for a motion in the House of Commons calling for just such a commission of inquiry (a motion which passed), the Liberal government has now rejected this call.” – Craig Martin Scott, e-petition initiator

While its forces were deployed in Kandahar, Canada routinely transferred detainees to Afghan custody in full knowledge of the extremely high risk of torture. In so doing, Canada failed utterly to prevent the torture of many of them, thus flouting one of the most basic legal and moral obligations: the prohibition of torture, enshrined in customary international law, international human rights treaties, international humanitarian law and Canada’s own Criminal Code.

Yet, the Minister of Defence concludes the official response as follows:

Throughout Canada’s military operations in Afghanistan, the Government of Canada ensured individuals detained by the CAF were treated humanely and handled, transferred or released in accordance with our obligations under international law.”

Says Craig Scott:

These words could have been penned, word for word, by the previous Conservative government…. It is deeply disappointing that the Liberal government has chosen to add another link to a chain of complicity that for over a decade has seen non-stop efforts on the part of various Canadian government actors to hide the truth and block any form of accountability.”

On the issue of the government’s response coming from the Minister of National Defence, only one of the departments and agencies of government implicated in the matter, Craig Scott states:

I wish to be clear that it is wholly inappropriate that Minister Sajjan has headed this decision process, given the possibility he may have relevant general knowledge (and possibly also specific knowledge) arising from his command and military intelligence roles in Afghanistan at relevant times. Minister Sajjan should have recused himself from this decision.

I do not believe Canada can seriously promote human rights and rule of law values, let alone try to project a “Canada is back” sunny virtue, around the world when we are not prepared to account for Canadians’ concern about our own complicity in torture, disappearances and extra-judicial killings – by way of our policies and practices of transferring captives to Afghan agencies known to engage in frequent and/or systematic perpetration of these violations – and our own alleged direct involvement in abusive treatment of detainees while simultaneously setting up a system to hide the fact those detainees were in our custody (as just revealed in the La Presse reports).”